Re: Secrest family in Owen Co., Indiana

Marylin,I was avoid the chores I need to do this weekend and looked up the following. There is a largish family file at the Owen County Library about the Secrest surname which I took a look through. There is a five page document done by another Secrest decendant entitled The William Secrest Family of Mason and Fleming Counties, KY. that hasMesser B. Secrest in it and appears to be resonably documented. The genealogy librarian can be contacted at genealogy@owenlib.org.

From 'The William Secrest Family of Mason and Fleming Co, KY'

William Secrest b: 15 Sept 1755 in Virginia d: 26 July 1824. He married Mary Beeson, daughter of Messer and Mary Malin Beeson b:26 Oct 1765 d: 24 Sept 1824. He might have had a first wife by the name of Anna Ingram. Their children were:

Messer's nephew James (son of Beeson and Martha McHenry) did built a large brick house in Washington Township sometime after returning from the Mexican War and before 1860. The 13 July 1993 column of Owen County Ancestors says "...James Secrest was, like some of his relatives, a shrewd businessman. Within a few years he had accumulated more than a modest fortune as a cattle buyer and land owner. His growing family and growing property holdings included by 1852 forty acres where "Brick House" stands. Three years and two sons later he bought adjoining land and continued to expand in children andland to include a daughter and a neighbor's eighty acre farm by 1859. Sometime before the spring of 1860 his fine home was built." possibly by the Gilbert's-brick and stone masons living with them in the 1850 census.